Hanoi - Saturday

In keeping with tradition here, streets or neighbourhoods are identified by what they sell. This dates back many centuries when the trade guilds had specific streets named after their wares – charcoal, silk, leather, shoes, flowers, roasted fish, baskets, chicken, silver. The neighbourhood I’m in? Safety. Shop directly across the street (and many around the corner) are stocked with fire extinguishers, life jackets, hard hats, reflective vests, round life rings, etc. (notice the women carrying bamboo baskets selling fruit). Go figure. Yesterday, I stumbled upon button street.

The pictures show the parking out front of my hotel (rock hard bed, again!), the sidewalk BBQ restaurant below my window and the safety shop across the street.

This, right now, is one of those truly neat moments in travel. I'm sitting on the second floor balcony of a Spanish tapas restaurant with a view of the Catholic cathedral across the square (I've stayed on this street several times before), with a cold Tiger beer, watching the kids at play in front of the church (Saturday classes just got out from the school across the way) and listening to the ever present honking of horns. If you're piloting anything motorized, it's your birthright to honk the bloody horn constantly. I sometimes think the cars can't move if the horn isn't honking. Interspersed in the noise are the bells of pedicabs (for the gringos). Dusk is just falling. Temperature is pleasant (damn hot and humid earlier). Constant, overwhelming stream of motorbikes going by. Emission controls on vehicles? Another foreign concept that hasn't made it to SE Asia yet.

Oh well, time to post this and get back to the reason I'm here...work.